Glottolog: kams1241 | ||
Geographic
distribution: eastern Guizhou, western Hunan, and northern Guangxi Linguistic classification: Tai–Kadai
Northern
Lakkja–Kam?
Kam–Sui | ||
The Kam–Sui languages (Chinese: 侗水語支; pinyin: Dòng-Shǔi) are a branch of the Tai–Kadai languages spoken by the Kam–Sui peoples. They are spoken mainly in eastern Guizhou, western Hunan, and northern Guangxi in southern China. Small pockets of Kam–Sui speakers are also found in northern Vietnam and Laos.
Contents
Classification
Kam–Sui includes a dozen languages. The Lakkja and Biao languages are sometimes separated out as a sister branch to Kam–Sui within a "Be–Kam–Tai" branch of Kradai, but this is not well supported. Otherwise the languages are not subclassified.
The better known Kam–Sui languages are Dong (Kam), with over a million speakers, Mulam, Maonan, and Sui. Other Kam–Sui languages include Ai-Cham, Mak, and T’en, and Chadong, which is the most recently discovered Kam–Sui language. Yang (2000) considers Ai-Cham and Mak to be dialects of a single language.
Graham Thurgood (1988) presents the following tentative classification for the Kam–Sui branch. Chadong, a language which has only been recently described by Chinese linguist Jinfang Li, is also included below. It is most closely related to Maonan.
Biao and Lakkja, which are of uncertain classification, may be the closest relatives of the Kam–Sui branch; Biao may even be a divergent Kam–Sui language.
Demographics
Nearly all speakers of Kam–Sui languages originate in the Qiandongnan (Dong) and Qiannan (Sui, Then, Mak, Ai-Cham) Prefectures of Guizhou, as well as the prefecture-level cities of Hechi (Mulam and Maonan) and Guilin (Chadong) in northern Guangxi. Many Kam–Sui speakers have also migrated to farther urban areas such as Guangzhou.
Small groups of Kam and Sui speakers also reside in Tuyên Quang Province, Vietnam, in the villages of Đồng Mộc and Hồng Quang, respectively.
By language
By location
(Listed counterclockwise: east to north to west to south)
By population
There is a total of about 2 million Kam–Sui speakers.
The four largest Kam–Sui ethnic groups, the Dong, Shui, Mulao, and Maonan, are officially recognized by the Chinese government. Non-recognized Kam–Sui ethnic groups (Chadong, Then, Mak, Ai-Cham) who can still speak their own languages number less than 50,000.
- Dong: about 1,500,000 speakers; 1.7 million in 1995
- Sui: 300,000 speakers
- Mulam: 86,000 speakers (ethnic population: 200,000)
- Maonan: 30,000 speakers (ethnic population: 100,000)
- Chadong: 20,000 speakers
- Then: 15,000 speakers
- Mak: 10,000 speakers
- Ai-Cham: 2,700 speakers
Other languages
The following peoples may also speak Kam–Sui languages.
There are also some languages in southeastern Guizhou, northern Guangxi, and southwestern Hunan that have been influenced by Kam-Sui languages, such as Bendihua 本地话, a Pinghua lect spoken in Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, Hunan.
The Sanqiao are distributed in the following locations of Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou.
Cao Miao locations include:
Reconstruction
A preliminary of reconstruction of Proto-Kam–Sui had been undertaken by Graham Thurgood. Another reconstruction of Proto-Kam-Sui, mostly based on Thurgood's reconstruction, was accomplished by Ilia Peiros, as part of his reconstruction of Tai-Kadai, which he accomplished without taking the Kra languages in account.